PRE-GAME RANT

Taylor vs. Tyler is the story tonight. Do we care how well Tyler does? Well, other than to keep our goals against down, I say no. Tyler Seguin is a very good player, but I’m happy with what we got. Seguin’s success or lack of success doesn’t dictate how the draft went, imho.. it’s about how well Taylor Hall is doing here, and I think he’s easily one of the best players we’ve had here in ages. ‘Nuff said on that.

The former cup champions are off to quite a slow start this year, being 6-7-0 and the 4th worst team in the NHL standings right now. The Oilers, meanwhile, sit near the top with a shocking 9-3-2 start and the third highest point total in the NHL, thanks a lot to great goaltending and some much better team defense. I’ll give play by Gilbert and Smid a huge nod there too, especially.

In the early going, I’d also give a lot of credit to the Kid Line (Hall / Nuge / Eberle), but I think the lack of ability to line match on the road has made it harder on them, which is to be expected. Hall is 0G, 0A, -2 on road this year; Nugent-Hopkins is 1G, 0A, -2 on road; and Jordan Eberle is 0G, 2A, -2 on road this year. Not good… again this is to be expected since Renney won’t have an easier time giving these guys cherry minutes on the road. Also, we’ve only had 6 road games this year so far. It’s not a huge issue yet, but having seen them get shut down when teams can better match units against them, my excitement over this group has faded a bit. And by that, I just mean they aren’t big stars just yet.. they’ll get there.. but don’t expect ppg paces to keep up.

Anyways, with the Oilers on a tear here, I expect another win. Tonight it sounds like they will focus more on offense (per Potter). Will it result in more GA more than GF? That remains to be seen.. but I think this will be another win!

On another sight I suggested a 6-2 loss, I was close. Terrible outing foe Eager and Barker, they likely find the pine tonight. PRV will find his way back in the lineup. Gagner needs to find his way back to center. I’d suggest leaving the top lines the same. Gagner centers Jones and PRV. Maybe Belanger centering Petrell and Lander….as suggested by Robin Brownlee. Sutton is back, so Barker can watch. This may work against Detroit.

i couldnt believe barkers dumb penalty. what an idiot. what a rediculously stupid time to take it and if i was his teammate i would have been disgusted at it. stupid stupid penalty. i dont care how confident you are in the pk, that was a healthy scratch for 20 games kind of dumb decision. all that hard work for 50 minutes gone.

oilinblood: i couldnt believe barkers dumb penalty. what an idiot. what a rediculously stupid time to take it and if i was his teammate i would have been disgusted at it. stupid stupid penalty. i dont care how confident you are in the pk, that was a healthy scratch for 20 games kind of dumb decision. all that hard work for 50 minutes gone.

Couldn’t agree with you more! That game may still have gone off the rails anyway but at that point it was 4-3 & the Oilers had some really good opportunities to tie it up. So far Barker has had about 8 shifts that I appreciated, the rest were a glaring example of why this guy has been bounced around & put on waivers previously. He doesn’t have any ambition to dig up pucks or throw his weight around to regain the puck when he has the chance; kinda like MAB except with less point production. Would much rather see that spot go to Petry on a full time basis now that Sutton is back.

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